Heavy oil reservoirs with very high viscosity, such as tarsands (oilsands) seem, are the most common candidates for thermal method. As a thermal method for oilsands, Steam-Assisted Gravity Drainage process or SAGD process, as it is popularly called, has proven to be very successful in several field applications in heavy oil reservoirs in Canada.The present visualization study have been done using small two-dimensional reservoir models to investigate the drainage mechanism in steam chamber relating to heat and mass transfer among steam, condensate, oil and reservoir. The small reservoir models were made to be homogeneous by filling test heavy oil in the 70ﾟC atmosphere after closest packing of glass-beads into test 2D reservoir.The steam (105-107ﾟC) was injected from the injection well only under the conditions of constants injection pressure or rate. After steam break-through from injection well to production well, oil production controls were applied to keep the temperature of product
… Moreion oil and condensate under the 70-80ﾟC.The expanding rate of steam chamber was measured from both video-picture analysis and amount of oil production. And temperature distributions was also visualized using thermal-video system. The heat loss from the apparatus was 20-30% of total injection heat.Results of present visualization study can be summarized as follows :1) The shape of steam chamber at break-through is effected by steam injection pressure or rate, however the difference becomes smaller after start of oil production.2) The horizontal growing mechanism of steam chamber is basically caused by SAGD phenomena, however vertical one is based on fingering effect on the chamber boundary.3) Based on the comparisons between steam chamber boundary and isotherm lines, the temperature on the steam chamber boundary is almost equal to 80ﾟC for steam temperature 105ﾟC.4) The relationship between cumulative steam injection and cumulative oil production is not sensitive to steam injection pressure or rate. Less